


and all the light is neverending

by booksandteaandallthingslovely



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Not A Fix-It, again I'm sorry, honestly this just caused me more pain, this is not a fix it i apologise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:08:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksandteaandallthingslovely/pseuds/booksandteaandallthingslovely
Summary: The council are saying no, no, not without complete agreement but all he can think is that he’d follow this girl anywhere. He’d follow her into certain death.When he volunteers, he thinks he may be volunteering to do just that. But the smile she gives him as he leans close, a little too close, to say “welcome home,” just seems to ground him, tie his heart firmly to hers and this cause and the hope that she has come to represent.I could love this woman, flits through his mind for the briefest of moments before it’s brushed away, stored firmly in the back of his mind to be analysed later.





	

_can I just fight for the winning side? _

_and feel that i'm building a _

_home and a life to behold _

_till it's robbed from my sight? _

 

The world is shuddering. The air is vibrating with an energy that makes Jyn feel nauseous. Or maybe that’s just the shuttle, rocketing down the tower. Or maybe it’s her injuries. 

Or maybe it’s the blood slowly seeping into Cassian’s shirt, a blooming stain of black spreading across his torso. Come to think of it, it’s probably that. They haven’t let go of each other since he held her back from attacking the already dead Krennic. They’d hobbled over to the shuttle with his arm around her shoulders and hers wrapped lightly, lightly around his waist in case she brushed against his wound. The shuttle was dark and the sunlight filtered in through the gaps, sometimes disappearing. The whites of Cassian’s eyes gleamed in the dark when the light disappeared and Jyn couldn’t find it in her to look away, to look around and try to comprehend what was happening. Dimly she knew that the world shuddering couldn’t be a good sign, but it was a faint buzzing outside of the little void of calm between her and Cassian. The swaying of the shuttle moved their faces towards then apart from each other, but they were never more than a few inches away. Their breath mingled and as the shuttle swayed again Jyn simply went with the motion and let her lips land on Cassian’s, perhaps a little awkwardly but he didn’t seem to mind. The arm already around her shoulder tightened, and his other hand came up to gently cup her jaw, run a thumb along the line of her cheekbone. The tenderness in the motion was almost suffocating, and Jyn broke away, gasping, with her forehead still against his. He was breathing heavily but she knew it was as much from his wound as it was her. The shuttle reached the ground and the doors slid open and in the middle of the day, dawn had come again. 

 

In the dim light of the council room he watches her out of the side of his eye, remaining inconspicuous until he’s called upon. She’s young, and despite the life she has been dealt (and he knows that life, he’s done his research), she looks it. Wide-eyed and innocent, almost, if you didn’t know she’d been the best soldier in a radical faction of the Rebellion. When he starts to question her he can tell she’s sizing him up as much as he is her. He believes her when she says she doesn’t have the luxury for political opinions. Doesn’t agree, doesn’t think it’s right, but he believes that she, like so many others, think the best life available to them is one of obscurity. Keeping your head down, your name out of other peoples mouths, until one day you die in a corner of the galaxy without one mark on the stars or their inhabitants. 

He doesn’t want glory, or fame, that’s not what this is about. But to Cassian, staying idle as the universe burnt around you made you as bad as those who lit the match. 

Her eyes light up when Mon Mothma mentions her assured freedom, and Cassian can’t help but feel a creeping feeling of doubt in the loyalty of someone who’s heart is not truly with the cause. 

 

Jedha is destroyed and Cassian finds himself continually glancing at Jyn, trying to find something in her, he wasn’t even sure what. Whatever it was that made her so good with a blaster. 

Whatever it was that sent her out into a firefight to save a stranger’s screaming child. 

They’re on their way to Eadu and he’s waiting for base to radio back and confirm. He’s not surprised when they confirm his orders to kill Galen Erso. What does surprise him is the sudden wave of disgust, repulsion, anger with himself that rises up inside him with the thought. He stifles it as fast as possible and replaces the headset in the console. 

He’s killed before. He’s killed over and over again in the name of the Rebellion and he’s never liked it but he’s always known, in a steady way, that it was for a cause he believed in. It was a necessary action, however bloody. But something about this order feels wrong, fills his body with a shaking energy that seems to beat _‘no, no, no, no, no,’_ inside him. It sets him on edge and he finds himself lashing out at Jyn, even though he knows she’s just lost one of the closest things she had to a family in the form of Saw Gerrera. But she doesn’t have the hologram, which means he can’t prove to the council that Galen’s secret rebellion is legitimate. That his survival is a necessity, like his death was before. He finds himself sullen and silent the rest of the way to Eadu, and Jyn much the same. 

There’s a part of him that wants to reach out, to talk to her and maybe— reason with her? Make her understand his point of view? Comfort her? He doesn’t know. There’s so much he doesn’t know with her, so he stays silent, and so does she. 

 

He can’t pull the trigger. He cannot pull the god damn trigger. Rain soaks his hair and his clothes and drips into his eyes, and Galen Erso is there, in his viewfinder, standing clear. A perfect shot. 

It should be the perfect shot. 

He gasps and jerks his head away and rests it against the cold metal of his weapon, for just a moment, before he picks up his binoculars and, of course, sees Jyn climbing stealthily onto the platform. And, of course, K2 calls him and announces an Alliance squadron is there to blow it to pieces. And, of course, he cannot let this happen. The next half hour is a blur. He hears Jyn scream out, “father!” Later he hears her voice, roughened in grief, chanting “no,” and “papa,” and the guilt that rips through him leaves him breathless. He didn’t pull the trigger but he might as well have. She says so later, on the ship, and once again he lashes out. 

Something in this girl hits a nerve with him, drags open parts of him he’s left hidden for years, tucked away for fear they could be exploited as weaknesses. He’s shouting at her, laying bare his own grievances and he can’t talk his way out of this and they both know it, but he’s done what he’s had to do to survive and so has he. He likes to think he’s survived for something greater, but she seems to come and rip that right out from under him. 

The trip to Yavin IV is once again stiflingly silent. 

 

He says “welcome home,” and he doesn’t know if he’s talking about Yavin IV,or the Rebellion, or himself. He thinks maybe all three. He thinks maybe just the last. He hears her, echoing his own words to a room full of politicians and dignitaries, soldiers and technicians, volunteers and civilians. 

“Rebellions are built on hope,” she says, and he can’t help but marvel at how someone who has just lost the last of their family, the last of their kin, can still be hopeful. The council are saying no, no, not without complete agreement but all he can think is that he’d follow this girl anywhere. He’d follow her into certain death. 

When he volunteers, he thinks he may be volunteering to do just that. But the smile she gives him as he leans close, a little too close, to say “welcome home,” just seems to ground him, tie his heart firmly to hers and this cause and the hope that she has come to represent. 

_I could love this woman,_ flits through his mind for the briefest of moments before it’s brushed away, stored firmly in the back of his mind to be analysed later. 

 

Waking up is a painful experience, a slow drag from black unconsciousness to a dazed and blinding semi-awareness, made fuzzy by the cloud of pain enveloping his body. But something pulls him up, up, up out of the darkness and into the light, up the tower, up to the satellite dish where he kills Krennic right before he would have killed her. Jyn. He would have killed Jyn. The thought keeps his blaster pointed waveringly at Krennic’s prone form, but when Jyn lurches towards Krennic it breaks the spell and he holds her back, presses his nose to her hair and mutters words of comfort. She doesn’t smell particularly nice, but like ash and metal and blood and sweat. He doesn’t care. His mind is fogged with pain and with her and in his addled state he knows, somewhere, dimly, that he is going to die. But it’s background noise to the overwhelmingness of _her._ His world has narrowed down simply to her and her tired eyes and her lips, dry but still soft-looking, and her dirty skin. He couldn’t muster the energy to look away and he doesn’t want to, and when she sways towards him to kiss him lightly his body hums with a sense of rightness. He leans against the wall of the shuttle so he can cradle her to him with both arms and still hold himself up. She gasps and breaks away but not too far. Their breathing mingles and he’s sure he can hear a dull roaring that can’t be anything good, but when the shuttle doors open he is bathed in light. 

 

They stagger towards the shore’s edge, towards the rapidly evaporating ocean. He’s leaning heavily on her but they both look out into the oncoming dawn, blindingly beautiful. She can tell he’s willing himself to take one step further then another, then another, until finally he collapses onto the sand and so does she, one hand trailing softly down his thigh. They’re breathing heavily now, and the move to clasp hands stems from a need to both seek and provide comfort. It’s almost painful, how tightly they hold each other’s hands, but if she let’s go she’s scared he’ll disappear and she’ll be alone, all alone when the sun comes and swallows her whole. She knows he feels the same way. The light gets closer and they move in tandem to wind themselves tightly around each other. His hand almost claws the fabric at the nape of her neck as his other arm fits tightly around her waist. He’s told her her father would be proud of her and she thinks that his hold says he’s proud of her, too. She buries her head into her neck and presses her lips against the dry skin in atonement for all his sins, and all hers, too. Their breathing syncs and the air is becoming impossibly dry and hot, a scorchingburningsearing heat that makes their lungs ache. She can feel the oncoming wave, a deafening roar that makes her bones shake and his flesh tremble against hers. The light is rushing, rushing, rushing towards them and her arms tighten and his eyes widen and— 

 

_in the thick of my heart _

_by the skin of my teeth _

_till i'm forgotten _

_and covered in weeds _

_and my withering soul is in the sea _

 

_i will hold onto you, _

_ hold onto me.  _

**Author's Note:**

> The title and lyrics are all from the beautiful song 'Sjamboksa' by Gang of Youths. Come cry with me at hvstorical.tumblr.com.


End file.
